A former High Court judge, CS Karnan, was arrested today over offensive comments he allegedly made against woman judges and wives of judges, which were posted on YouTube.

The ex-judge was arrested by the Chennai police.

He had allegedly made defamatory and offensive comments against Supreme Court and High Court judges, the wives of judges and uploaded them online.

The Madras High Court had recently come down heavily on the police for not acting in the case.

In 2017, ex-Justice Karnan became the first sitting high court judge to have been sentenced to jail. He was sentenced to six months for contempt of court at a time he was a judge of the Calcutta High Court.

At the time, a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court, then headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar, had asked the West Bengal police chief to take him into custody. He evaded arrest for weeks after being sentenced to jail until he was tracked down through his mobile phone.

He was also the first sitting High Court judge to appear before the Supreme Court. He was first appointed a judge of the Madras High Court in 2009. He was transferred to the Calcutta High Court in 2016. He wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then President Pranab Mukherjee accusing senior judges of corruption.

Last year, the former judge contested the national election as a candidate of the Anti-Corruption Dynamic Party (ACDP) he floated in 2018.